


Not Jurassic

by Yumi_SKRT



Category: Original Work, Raptors - Fandom
Genre: Animal Husbandry, First Contact, Fluff, Gen, Intelligent raptors, Jurassic Series Do-Over, Kid Fic, Original Character(s), Original Female Character - Freeform, Original Human Character - Freeform, Original Raptor Character(s), Pack Bonding, SO MUCH FLUFF, Slice of Life, Smart raptors, Well sort of kid fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-05-19 17:50:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 12,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19361719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yumi_SKRT/pseuds/Yumi_SKRT
Summary: Basically, I looked at all the smart raptor fiction that Jurassic World has produced. And then I looked at how awful the animals in Jurassic World are treated by everyone but Owen and Barry. And then I realized I needed to write a story about what would have happened to smart raptors who were actually treated right.WARNING: This is effectively a dead story. I just plumb ran out of inspiration.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So to lead in, I'll let you know I have experience training and hand-rearing parrots, a passion for research, and a deep love of first-contact stories. Also, to totally honest, I rarely finish my projects all in one go, so if I stop updating and you want more, drop me a line and I can almost certainly be convinced to continue.
> 
> Also: **warning!** an image of a newly hatched raptor baby is included. I don't _think_ anyone will find it triggering, but if you've never seen a baby bird before, they look like weird little embryonic aliens, just so you know.

The first new raptors brought into the world are woven out of avian and reptile DNA. There's no original DNA in them, extracted from a mosquito in amber, because DNA just can't keep from breaking down irrecoverably after 65 million years. What there is, is a lot of careful cross-referencing of avian DNA, to see what they have in common, and a lot of tinkering with avian and reptile DNA to fill in the gaps with traits based on archeological studies. It's years of grueling, painstaking research and complex computer models, all based on the premise of what won't even be dinosaurs, not really. 

Luckily, the investors don't care. The results will look like dinosaurs, and they will act like how we currently envision dinosaurs acting, and that's enough for a great deal of excitement and consumer interest. Of course, of _course_ the idea is to build a theme park, because of everyone has heard of Jurassic Park. The fact that those movies are famous for ending with the tragic loss of lives doesn't seem to be an obstacle - all the expert will admit, when pressed, that the parks in the movies had obvious, glaring problems that could have been easily avoided. They will concede that there's no particularly good reason for dinosaurs to be more dangerous than any other zoo animal, provided that everyone involved listens to the correct experts and does a lot of careful planning. 

This is how Anelle Burns, former trainer of zoo animals and particularly parrots, comes to be in a desperately humid, hot room with the first clutch of raptor eggs. Besides Tyrannosaurus, Raptors are by far the most requested therapod, and Tyrannosaurus, everyone agrees, are too big to be the first. There are researchers still looking into how to produce non-therapods, hindered severely by the fact that birds are quite a bit more distantly related to, say, a diplodocus. 

This first clutch is the plunge off the proverbial cliff into a world with sort-of-dinosaurs in it, and no-one quite knows how it's going to turn out. In theory, the raptors will have the sociality and intelligence of a parrot combined with the predator instincts of a hawk, with a fair bit of snake thrown in for good measure. In theory, they will grow to be roughly the size of chickens and no larger, because this is a first batch and they're not _that_ stupid. In theory, it should be at least a year until they're mature enough to be dangerous, because again, duh. (Not to mention that an intelligent, large species needs a long childhood anyway.)

Anelle is holding her breath and hoping very hard as she sees the first shell begin to dimple outward. All five eggs started peeping an hour ago, and haven't let up. This is the beginning of something that could shape Anelle’s whole career, but more importantly it's a hatching, and hatchings are always a special, almost sacred time to her. This will be her first impression of the animals that she's going to be working with every day for the foreseeable future, her first glimpse of creatures who will, if the scientists got the imprinting right, consider her their mother and protector. That's _important_ , that these living beings are going to love her in their own weird semi-avian way, that they will learn to trust and respect her, that she has a very real responsibility to prove all of that warranted. 

There are those who say you shouldn't have an emotional connection with the animals you train. That professionalism is key, and animals are only animals, and it's just sloppy to care. Anelle is certainly going to be professional. She's never going to forget for a second that she's dealing with animals, wild animals no less. She does her level best to anthropomorphize as little as humanly possible. And still, Anelle cares. She doesn't quite understand why you’d ever want to go through so much slow, often difficult work if you didn't care. 

When she looks back on this day, years into the future, she’ll know those first impressions were important. Omni hatched first, of course, always in the lead, always just a bit more grown-up than the others. Victoria came next, so eager to start exploring. Nelly and Madonna, one grumpy at the effort and the other peeping wildly and triumphantly. And finally Prospira, who’d given them all a scare by nearly refusing to come out of the egg at all. 

Anelle was always the primary parent, right from the start. It was Anelle who slept in the hot, muggy room so she could wake every two hours to feed them the specialized formula created by the scientists. It was Anelle who spoke to them, or hummed songs, or gently, so gently, ran her forefinger over their tiny heads. In a few days, they’d be hardy enough to be picked up gently (and even this might be over-cautious, but Anelle wasn't risking anything). They’d start to receive regular health checks, for such babies were terribly susceptible to disease. They’d be cuddled with utmost gentleness while the bedding in their carefully-constructed nest-hollow was changed, and the plastic base was thoroughly disinfected. A team of avian and reptile veterinarians was on constant standby, minutely adjusting the temperature of the room, observing the chicks through a glass, giving Anelle suggestions and cautions, which she didn't even begrudge. These weren't the parrots she’d first gotten practice raising by hand as a teenager, these were a whole new kind of creature, and no one knew exactly what was best for them. 

Gradually, gradually, the peeping blobs, so alien-looking they were cute again, began to grow the first buds of feathers, to vocalize a little more, to sleep a little less, to show the first signs of their avian-derived intelligence as they began to recognize the identical cups that their formula came in. They're judged old enough for some enrichment by the time they're two weeks old, at first just adding some colorful, pet-safe scraps of cloth to their bedding. When they respond to the addition with enthusiastic chewing, it's determined that the nestlings are progressing more quickly mentally than they are physically - a problem that they’d known from the start they might have, since their brains were much truer to the birds whose DNA had been sampled from than their bodies were, and birds matured quickly. 

Anelle knows she's going to dearly, dearly miss this baby stage when it's over. At 3 weeks old, they're a handful but an entirely docile one. Omni is the most developed, with a smattering of proper feathers all over her except her bald, scaly face and legs. They're a healthy, rich green that makes Anelle's heart warm with knowing they're a sign of excellent health and nutrition. Her teeth, which have been present since she hatched, are starting to nip more forcefully, which the vets say is a sign she's nearing weaning age. At the moment she’s wrestling happily with a raptor-shaped felt doll of about her own size, which seems to be winning. She's too big to hold in a single hand now, and growing visibly every day. 

Most breathtaking is the raptors’ intelligence. All five babies will respond to their names promptly, and are starting to develop real personalities. When presented with that felt doll this very morning, their reactions had been charmingly in-character. Prospira had been frightened at first, and then cautiously social, chirping and vocalizing from well across the nest. Madonna had been blatantly jealous, and was still deliberately ignoring the interloper, pretending to be absolutely engrossed in fussing at her still-developing feathers (and glancing at the doll when she thought no one was looking). Nelly just didn't care, and would rather snuggle up with anyone would let her and nap. Victoria had attacked immediately, and loved it when Anelle would hold the doll and make it wiggle as if was fighting back, and Omni would rather alternate between play-fighting and vocalizing to the doll in long conversations as if it was one of her sisters. 

Anelle reflected as she fed them their evening meal that it wouldn't be that much longer that they looked to her for food, at least not in the same childlike expectation that it would be presented right to their mouths, in an easily-digestible slurry. Omni was already starting to balk at begging for the syringe, although they weren't at all certain yet that she could actually digest solid food. She noted down in her daily log that they should start presenting meat the next day, said goodnight to each of the raptors (this was a daily ritual now that they didn't need feeding overnight, and they all peeped in return), and went home.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The nestlings first introduction to solid food.

Introducing something new to the nest was something that had to be handled just right, and Anelle had developed a pattern for the process that seemed to work well. First, she walked into the raptor room like usual, not carrying anything, and spent a while talking to the nestlings. She made sure to give them each individual attention now that they were old enough, repeating their names (which they loved) and giving them each a little stroke on the head. It was never too early to start accustoming a parrot to the idea of communication with their handler, and Anelle had made a point from the start to always explain what she was doing to in simple, child-friendly language. They couldn't understand her - they might never understand a single word, depending on how parrot-like they were or weren't - but their adoption of their names, and so early, was a very hopeful sign that the girls might grow up to be as capable as understanding speech as some of the more intelligent parrots, or about as well as a young toddler. They weren't specifically training the raptors to understand English, and things like intelligence tests were for years in the future, after there were successfully raised adult raptors and multiple humans who knew how to work with them, but everyone involved agreed that it was better to treat the raptors as if they might grow up to be very intelligent indeed, at least until they showed signs they weren't. Smart animals could be seriously harmed by growing up with their intelligence underestimated, or worse, ignored. 

So after the morning greetings, Anelle made sure to say “I am going to bring you something new. I will go get it,” just like she did for every new toy. The girls were alert and interested as she walked out of the room, although it was hard to tell if that meant they’d grasped that something new was coming or not. 

She returned a bare moment later with a small bowl of meat chunks in her hand. She stopped in the middle of the room and made a point of showing them the bowl and the meat inside. Now the raptors were definitely reacting, as Victoria clicked her teeth impatiently and Prospira edged behind her sister, making herself small. Nelly and Omni were peering at the bowl for different angles, as if expecting that tilting their heads would produce a different result, and Madonna had been so bold as to take a few steps towards the opening in the nest, drawn up tall and with her feathers pressed flat to her skin. 

“This is a bowl with meat,” said Anelle, slowly and clearly. “Meat is for eating.” She picked over the raw meat with her fingers, as if finding it terribly fascinating. She turned slightly to the side and pretended to be completely engrossed in poking and prodding the meat, ignoring the nestlings entirely. She commented several times that the meat was very fun and very good, relying more on her tone than her words to convince the raptors that she had something good and they ought to want it too. Slowly, feathers were relaxed to poof a bit more, and the raptors began to move towards the front of the nest, towards her. After five minutes, Prospira gave herself a little shake, ruffling her feathers all over, and developed the same interest Omni, Nelly, and Madonna had shown, although she still stayed at the back of the pack. Victoria was nearly falling out of the nest with the excitement to get closer to this mysterious and apparently desirable new thing. 

Now it was time to move closer, slowly so as not to spook them out of their interest. Anelle advanced step by step towards the cage, keeping up a constant stream of calm, happy chatter. Finally, she put the bowl down in open part of the nest, shooing the little raptors away to make room. They all eyed it warily, but not without interest. Victoria was naturally the first to approach, bumping the rim of the bowl with her snout and then huffing indignantly. Well, after that of course Madonna had to bonk the bowl too, and sniff the meat inside curiously. And that showed Omni and Nelly that it was safe, and Omni licked the bowl and Nelly sniffed the meat in turn with an approving chirrup, and Victoria began to chew on a cube of meat as Prospira nibbled on her tail thoughtfully. Victoria discovered quickly that meat was very good to chew on and tasted nice, and let out a long, complex series of chirps and coughs, which seemed to signal everyone else that they ought to be chewing on the meat, too, and the bowl was swarmed. None of the nestlings seemed to realize that the meat was _food_ , that it could be swallowed, but it was great fun to play with. 

Anelle praised them each in turn, “Good girl, Victoria, you were very brave. Good girl, Madonna -” which wouldn't mean much to them yet, but would soon be paired with clicker training and treats. They seemed to like her tone anyway, even if they didn't yet associate her words with rewards, or understand the meaning of approval. 

Anelle fed them all with the syringe as usual that night, but she suspected Omni at least might have swallowed some blood, if not a bit of meat. It was good that she, at least, was starting to wean on her own, was desirous of independence. One of the risks of hand-rearing animals was that it was far too easy for a human to over-baby them - after all, who could turn down a begging nestling? Well, an adult of their own species could have and would have, if they insisted on taking formula for too long. It was important to encourage that streak of independence and growth, lest you end up with a reliant, childish animal, who would never reach their full potential, like a thirty-year-old living in their parents’ basement. Anelle didn't want that for her raptors, wouldn't wish that kind of developmental stagnation on any animal. 

She went to bed that night reviewing the introduction of the bowl over and over, not from anxiety, but to cement the memory in her mind. The raptor room was continuously recorded, of course, but in the years to come watching the recording wouldn't be the same as remembering that day from her own perspective. This was a milestone in the life of the raptors, one that would never come again.


	3. Growing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The raptors leave the nest for the first time, and training begins in earnest.

At four months old, the raptor nestlings were weaned, fully-feathered, growing fast, and ready to leave the nest. That had been made clear when Victoria had, upon seeing a bowl of fresh meat, taken a flying leap from the nest and onto Anelle's shin, nearly causing Anelle to drop the bowl. The nest had been constructed quite low to the ground for this very reason, so that no-one would be hurt if a raptor decided to exit on their own power. Well, no one but Anelle, who had gotten thoroughly scraped by Victoria's still-small claws scrabbling for purchase. Small compared to some of the other animals Anelle had worked with, anyway; they were quite big enough to leave her needing butterfly bandages to close the wounds. 

That had been a tricky moment to respond to, as the girls needed to see that she supported them leaving the nest, but they also needed to learn not to jump on her, and especially not to wound her. There would still be plenty of scrapes, plenty of danger, but if the raptors were like parrots they would learn quickly what caused harm and would generally try to avoid it. If they weren't like parrots that way, future care would have to be a great deal more hands-off in the future unless they were in restraints. In that split second, Anelle had decided to scold Victoria, but gently, without too much bite that would make her scared to experiment in the future. She’d made some fake, wailing “ow” sounds as she pointed to and inspected the cuts (well, not that fake; it really did hurt) before leaving the room to care for the injuries, taking the meat with her. She’d done her best to convey being hurt without making enough of a production to seem entertaining, but it was a thin line to walk. The raptors needed to see that their actions had consequences without deciding those consequences were amusing enough to deliberately provoke again. 

Victoria had seemed confused when she’d returned, and a touch skittish as her position in the wide-open room had sunk in. Anelle had fed her a cube of meat before placing the bowl inside the nest in its regular position, where it was quickly mobbed by the raptors still in the nest. Then she’d scooped up Victoria for cuddles as she sat cross-legged on the floor of the room, telling Victoria she’d been brave, that it was safe outside the nest, anything she could think of that would reassure the little dinosaur that she was not in danger as she fed her a few bites of the all-natural, organic jerky that the vets had provided as safe treats. The raptors had started receiving the jerky as treats a couple of weeks ago, and had responded well; they seemed to particularly like how tough and chewy it was, which Anelle suspected was a sign of their parrot DNA, as she’d never heard of a hawk or snake with a penchant for chewing. Although dogs certainly liked to chew, so maybe it was a predator thing after all?

Victoria had relaxed quickly under her ministrations, and peered about the room as if it was a cave of wonders rather than the same room she’d looked at from the nest her whole life. Eventually she even began to wiggle with impatience at being held, and Anelle let her down to sniff and lick at the floor. It only took a few seconds for her to conclude that she’d rather be in the nest after all, and she returned under her own power, scrabbling clumsily over the lip of the nest to fall face-first into the soft bedding inside.

Omni was the next to come out, peering perplexedly at where Anelle sat so far away from the nest. Anelle kept up a string of constant cheerful encouragement - “Look at me, I'm so far away! Why don't you come see me?” - as the little raptor scaled the lip of the nest and stood perched on the edge like a bird, regarding the room beyond first through one eye and the other. Omni chirped and whistled back towards the nest, and Victoria responded in encouraging barks, while Prospira peeped anxiously. Eventually Omni decided to take the plunge, and leapt down to the floor just a few inches below. She called back a long stream of whistles and barks towards the nest, clearly communicating something, before she began to make a beeline to Anelle, who praised her lavishly and gave her two whole pieces of jerky. It wasn't too long before Omni was curled up in her arms, chirring with contented sleepiness as the excitement began to wear off. Victoria always seemed more energized after exploration, but Omni seemed to need to follow it with a bit of relaxing downtime, and often took a catnap after trying something new. 

Anelle spent the rest of the day in that spot in the floor, trying to lure the raptors out into the open with the promise of cuddles, attention, and jerky. Victoria was quick to come out a second time, and ran to and fro in the empty space, gabbling to herself like a demented chicken. Madonna woke up from her nap and realized her siblings were all focused on Victoria, and that was enough to overcome her fear; she sallied out onto the floor with the aplomb of a princess, gave Victoria a good telling off, and began her own little tirade. She warbled and clucked and coughed and generally made every sound she knew how to make, and preened appreciatively when Anelle praised her both her singing and her bravery. “Well, of course I'm wonderful, but thank you anyway,” her body language seemed to say. 

Well, now three of the five siblings had been out of the nest and had a good experience, and that meant Prospira finally conceded that it was probably safe, and made a wild dash for Anelle's arms. She buried her little head in Anelle's shirt and cheeped mournfully until she felt Anelle had been suitably comforting. She wouldn't leave Anelle's grip after that, even after she’d calmed down, instead surveying the area from her raised position with a look of comic solemnity, and calling towards the nest for Nelly to join them. 

Nelly was the most unwilling to come out and explore, but she eventually found herself sitting on the edge of the nest as Omni had done. All the raptors were starting to get sleepy, as evening was coming on, and Anelle was surrounded by three chirring forms blinking slower and slower, while Prospira had already fallen completely asleep in her grip. She watched with baited breath as Nelly shifted back and forth on the edge of the nest, uncertain if she wanted to jump. She called out to her sisters, a long, mournful cry, but they responded only with cheerful, somewhat muzzy barks. Finally Nelly seemed to screw herself up in preparation, her whole body poised right on the edge of jumping. With a final croak of protest, she hopped down onto the floor, and immediately began chastising the other raptors. With reluctant hisses and chirps, the awake juveniles began to make their way back to the nest, heeding Nelly’s summons. Before long they were curled up contentedly in their usual sleeping spots as Anelle deposited Prospira in her own preferred spot. With gentle peeps of acknowledgement as Anelle wished them good night, they drifted into full sleep.

***

The next day, just a week after the raptors' first excursion into the room, would be another big event: the raptors’ first serious training session. Anelle had been anticipating this for weeks, and had begun rewarding good behavior with treats when they were first introduced, but this would be the first time the raptors followed a command. Caring for the raptors was wonderful, and very rewarding, but training them was the real meat of the job, and it was Anelle's chance to finally see just how smart the girls had gotten. There was nothing quite like asking an animal to do something for you and seeing it willingly comply, because you’d built a relationship based on respect and trust.

Her tools for the first day of training were simple: a clicker, a thin pole that went up from the floor to her armpit with a tennis ball affixed to one end, and several packages of the approved beef jerky. Their first lesson would be target training - just learning to bump the tennis ball with their snouts, or mouth at it. This was the most basic of training skills, something even simple lizards could learn, and a tremendously useful skill to boot. The raptors’ response to this would determine the future of their training, and hopefully would provide a fun experience that would support an enthusiasm to learn. 

Anelle approached the training slowly, in small steps. First, she entered the raptor room with the package of jerky, which the girls were already familiar with, and the small clicker, which they were not. She showed the clicker to them from across the room, explaining that it was something new, that it made a sound. Then she demonstrated, just once, what a click sounded like. All of the raptors jumped when they heard it; this was an entirely new sound for them, the first time they’d heard much of anything that wasn't themselves or a human voice. If the raptors had been parrots, had thought like prey, Anelle would have taken a good deal longer to introduce them to the sound of the clicker, but the raptor girls were seemingly fearless, confident in their position as predators. They were cautious with new things, as was only smart, but they never panicked, they never truly spooked the way a prey animal could go frantic and mindless with fear to the point where they could hurt themselves. The raptor girls had kept their wits about them even when they’d had to get immunizations and blood tests from the vets, although they’d certainly hated and fought the experience. 

In any case, now Victoria had come running from the nest to investigate this new sound, which so clearly didn't frighten their foster-mother, and that convinced Madonna to inspect the new interloper; Omni and Nelly were both focused more on the treats, and were quick to follow for maximum up-close effect when begging; and Prospira followed more warily behind them, chittering half-hearted scoldings at everyone's recklessness. Anelle squatted down and presented the clicker for them to sniff at and lick in her open palm, fingers held carefully flat to minimize the risk of nipping. The girls had responded well to her continual insistence on scolding and somewhat melodramatic signs of pain when they were too rough, and Anelle wasn't concerned that they would deliberately hurt her as long as she was respectful, but it was common sense to minimize the risk of misunderstandings. 

Prospira chattered insistently for her sisters to back off before they could swarm the clicker, and they waited at a respectful distance as she inspected it carefully. Only when she was convinced it was totally safe did she cough approvingly and back off to let the other girls investigate less carefully. Victoria’s exploration, in particular, was less about finding out if the clicker was safe to be around and more about licking every inch of it in case it turned out to be tasty. Everyone jumped again when Nelly, having delicately picked up the clicker in her teeth, demonstrated that she could press the button quite handily with her tongue. At first she seemed as startled by the result as the others, but soon she was working the clicker as rapidly as she could, letting out little chuffing sounds of amusement at the rapid click-click-click she was producing. Anelle let her play with it until all of the unoccupied raptors were bored enough with the new sound to start ignoring it and start begging for jerky instead, at which point Nelly dropped the clicker in favor of her own begging. 

It was not a perfect introduction, as Anelle would have preferred that they didn't get used to the sound in the absence of reward, but it was a fairly good one. She retrieved the clicker and stood to her full height, and called Omni by name. When Omni responded by standing up straighter and cocking her head in acknowledgement, she immediately clicked before saying “good girl, Omni,” and delicately handing her a bit of jerky. The girls knew the drill: Anelle would hold the jerky lightly, just the tip of it in the tip of her fingertips, and the girls were to take hold of it in their teeth for a moment before scarfing it down. If raptor mouth touched Anelle's skin, the raptor would get a scolding and no more treats for the day. If anyone moved to steal the treat, they’d get a scolding and no more treats for that, too. Anelle had despaired at first that surely the highly competitive, covetous raptors weren't ready to display that level of restraint and complex reasoning, but she’d given it a go anyway (“when in doubt, give the animals a chance to prove themselves smarter than you think they are” was one of her mottos) and they’d actually taken to it quite quickly. If they hadn't, she would have trained the raptors independently using a technique called “stationing”, but it would have been a good deal slower and required separating the sisters during training until they could master the skill. 

In any case, the raptor juveniles were fulfilling Anelle's every hope for being smart and capable of self-control. She called all the raptors by name at least twice, rewarding acknowledgement with a click, praise, and a treat, before telling the raptors she was going to get something new. She returned a moment later with the pole, and allowed the raptors to inspect that as well, from a distance this time. Then she stood up to her full height and placed the tennis ball right in front of Madonna's nose. 

“Madonna, target,” she said clearly, and moved the pole just a bit so that the tennis ball brushed Madonna’s snout at the same time she clicked. Madonna reared back in indignation, but Anelle was already praising her, and she quickly forgot her offence in the face of a piece of jerky. As Madonna chewed happily, Anelle positioned the ball in front of Prospira’s nose. “Prospira, target,” she said again, and brushed Prospira's nose with the ball as she clicked. Prospira hissed warningly, but accepted the praise and treat. The surprise came when Omni eagerly stepped forward and bumped the ball with her own snout, then looked up expectantly for a treat. This was _extremely_ fast comprehension, and from watching others! On the other hand, Omni had not been prompted, which meant she shouldn't get a treat. Anelle handled this waiting a moment for Omni to realize she wasn't going to get a treat, then prompting her properly. When Omni didn't brush her nose against the ball, Anelle made a gentle tsking sound of reproach. “Omni, target,” she said again, and moved to very gently bop Omni with the ball, along with a click, praise, and a treat. Then she tried again; “Omni, target!” Omni hesitantly moved her nose just a fraction, and Anelle immediately rewarded her with a click, a “good girl, Omni!”, and a bit of jerky. 

While Omni scarfed down her treat, Anelle moved on to Nelly. “Nelly, target,” she prompted, and Nelly immediately bonked her nose against the ball, and chittered and coughed happily when she got a click. She accepted her “good girl” and jerky with a hint of preening smugness and a pleased chitter. 

From there it was as if the raptors had been target training all their lives. Victoria, Madonna, and Prospira all responded perfectly when they got their turns. All five of the raptors didn't hesitate to stretch farther for the ball, or take a few steps to reach it, or follow Anelle across the room to reach it. They’d clearly understood the basic concept of “touch the ball when prompted and you get a reward” at an abstract level that usually took many small steps of increasing variety for an animal to understand. 

Anelle found herself wondering if the raptors were as smart as one of the really bright African Grey parrots, maybe even a little bit smarter. “Or it could just be tapping into their instinct to chase prey,” Anelle chided herself. “Don't go building up expectations. Let the raptors show you exactly how smart they are or aren't, without preconceived ideas.”


	4. Lazy Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anelle's worries, and the sort of morning that makes animal training worth it.

The plan for the raptors’ growth had been that it would take them a full year to reach their adult size, standing at about a foot and a half in height. The raptors were now 5 months old and were each standing at about 1 foot three inches tall, or about three-quarters of that size, and they showed no signs of slowed growth. Over the past three weeks of training, they’d proven themselves to as smart as any African Grey that Anelle had ever heard of, picking up even complex tricks so quickly Anelle could hardly believe her eyes. 

Anelle was starting to get worried. The geneticists obviously hadn't been as on top of things as they’d pretended - growth was supposed to be one of the _easier_ traits to genetically alter. What if the girls were due for serious health problems from inexpertly managed tinkering? Worse, what if they were mentally unstable, prone to wild mood swings or dangerous seizures? Anelle didn't think she could stand it if these brilliant, wonderful animals were doomed. They'd trusted her so completely to take care of them, to soothe their hurts and keep them safe, but she wouldn't be able to do a single thing to protect them from a health problem.

Anelle came from a background in long-lived parrots. She'd never had to watch one of her charges die before. 

But there was nothing to do but relay her concerns to the vets and then push the issue out of her mind. She was determined to treasure every moment with her little raptors while she had them, and give them a good life. 

Today she strode into the raptor room with a confident step and a smile on her face. The vets had agreed with her that the current level of stimulation the raptors were getting just wasn't enough, and she'd ordered a whole heap of new, exciting toys for them on the company's dime - and they’d arrived just yesterday evening. 

The raptors were waiting for her, as usual, crowded around the entrance to the nest and watching the door. As she stepped into the room they scrambled over each other to be the first to greet her with a happy chirp and a bonk on the leg from their snout. Anelle greeted them each one by one as they took their turns saying hello. 

“We have something new today,” she told the raptors, and the little reptiles cheeped and coughed excitedly. They definitely understood “something new”, and it was one of their favorite phrases. “I'm going to go get it, okay?” she asked fondly.

She returned with something she knew Omni and Nelly would like the best - a puzzle box of the kind made for the cleverest parrots, with the moving parts made specifically to be easily handled by an animal’s mouth. “This is a new puzzle for you all,” she explained, showing them how she put a generous chunk of beef jerky in the box and locked it. As with most puzzle boxes, it was easy to lock, but hard to unlock, and watching it be locked wouldn't tell you how to unlock it. She had to smile as the raptors crowded around her so enthusiastically they almost tripped her. “Shoo!” she commanded, which was one of the prompts they’d been working on. Begrudgingly, the raptors pulled back out of her personal bubble, although they looked eager to rush right back in. She placed the puzzle on the ground and sat down next to it, which the girls took as tacit approval to pounce.

As expected, every raptor tried to move some part of the box at once, resulting in no progress at all and a good deal of squabbling. It took them a few minutes to settle down and realize that not all five raptors could play with the same toy at the same time. Nelly realized first, and backed off to let Madonna and Victoria fight against each other for the right to claim the box as their own. Omni and Prospira responded to her warblings by backing away themselves, and watching Victoria and Madonna go at it. Eventually Victoria won, but it was something of a pyrrhic victory - Victoria never had the patience for puzzles unless they could be defeated by attacking, and almost immediately got bored enough to give up her spot in favor of bringing her wind-up mouse to Anelle for winding. It was the sort made for cats, with a sort of pocket in the back for a treat to be placed, but Victoria never cared if there was a treat in there or not, chasing it around the room was her favorite thing. 

Victoria was succeeded in her place at the box by Madonna, who worked the little levers for about ten minutes before giving up in disgust. Madonna's favorite toy was her mirror, which she’d preen and primp herself in front of. Anelle had been concerned at first that she was treating the mirror like another raptor, but she never spoke to it like she would one of her sisters, and she often got upset if she saw a bit of meat left in her teeth, so it seemed she merely enjoyed the sight of her own reflection. 

Madonna was followed at the box by Omni and Nelly, who were willing to actually willing to work together on a challenge, usually chattering to each-other all the while. Prospira had given up interest in the box after seeing Madonna fail, and had instead climbed into Anelle's lap for cuddles. Prospira was by far the most snuggly of the little raptors, and her favorite position was sitting with her head under Anelle's arm, so that her snout was poking into Anelle's armpit to look out behind her. If Anelle got distracted from giving her neck scratches for too long, she’d roll over on her back and keen until they resumed, kicking her little feet in the air impatiently. 

Victoria returned for her mouse to be wound up again, and Propsira told her off for needing Anelle's hands when they could have been giving her skritches. Madonna came up to Anelle with her little cowboy hat, which Anelle placed on her head, and then returned to the mirror to see how she looked in it. Omni got jealous of Prospira, and gave up on the box to whine until Anelle picked her up; a minute later she decided cuddling was boring and wriggled back to the ground to try the puzzle again. Prospira reclaimed her cuddling spot. Nelly figured out how to disengage the first catch and very nearly crowed with excitement as Omni coughed and chortled in praise of her sister's cleverness. Madonna decided the hat was annoying, shook it off her head, and held a conversation with Anelle, wherein Madonna burbled and gabbled and occasionally went quiet to cock her head at Anelle and make sure she was paying attention. Anelle was distracted by Victoria returning the mouse again, and Madonna chastised her sharply until she said she was listening again. Prospira fell asleep and drooled on Adelle’s leg. 

And so a very pleasant morning passed, surrounded by the strange song of happy raptors conversing and squabbling and playing.


	5. Turning Point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The girls start showing what they're really made of.

Afternoon was training time, and at one of the vet’s suggestion, Anelle was working with a specially modified lexigram board of the type used with some great apes, most notably the famous Kanzi the bonobo. The scientists and techies involved in the project had worked together to rig up a fairly large touchscreen that sat vertically on a small easel, and allowed the raptors to touch every inch of it with their hands or snout as they preferred. Some one hundred and fifty lexigrams were loaded into the board, but it only showed 12 at a time, and the little raptors had only learned twenty or so - which was still incredibly impressive. 

Today they were working on counting and categorizing, both of which the raptors had taken to quickly and seemed to enjoy, and Anelle had obtained a massive jar full of old buttons for them to play with. 

“I'm holding five buttons. One, two, three, four, five. Who can press five on the board?” asked Anelle. A symphony of coughs answered enthusiastically. “Okay, Madonna, it's your turn. Go press five.”

Madonna skipped up to the board and bumped her nose against the square with the numeral 5 in a large font in the center. She looked up at Anelle expectantly, and Anelle obligingly gave her a click and a “good girl, Madonna!” and a stroke on the head. Madonna closed her eyes in happiness for a moment before returning to the group. 

“These five buttons are the same. This button,” she continued as she retrieved another button from the jar, “is different.” She put the buttons on the ground in front of the raptors and asked, “Who can point to which button is different?”

Once again, all the raptors coughed. Just yesterday only Nelly and Madonna had been confident enough in their answers with a “which is different” question to volunteer. Had the girls really picked it up that quickly, after just a few hours of practice? What had changed overnight?

“Prospira, show me which button is different.” Prospira eagerly pointed with her left front finger to the different button, in the middle of four widely spaced similar buttons. That was another thing, the pointing. Anelle hadn't taught them that, or at least not intentionally. She often pointed to something when she wanted the raptors to focus on it, and the girls had just picked up the habit one day, pointing at things they wanted, jabbing their fingers repeatedly if they wanted to emphasize. It had only taken one explanation that the motion was called pointing for the girls to begin to point to things on command. 

“Good girl, Prospira!” praised Anelle as she handed her charge a bit of jerky. She watched with surprise as Omni came up to the board as well, and warbled and chuffed at Prospira until Prospira gave Omni room to use the board. 

Omni changed which page of symbols were displayed (Anelle hadn't known she knew how to do that), and tapped on one squares. She switched back to the counting and categorizing page and tapped one square, then changed the page again and tapped another five squares. Across the top of the board it displayed the seven symbols in sequence, as it would continue to do until the button to clear the display was pressed.

“Anelle different Omni Nelly Prospira Madonna Victoria,” it read. Anelle couldn't believe her eyes. It was a simple, childlike statement: Anelle was not like the raptors, because she was a human. Anelle had never heard of an animal pointing out its differences from its caretakers before. She'd already seen signs that the raptors were as intelligent as the brightest adult corvids and great apes - they used symbols to communicate, seemed to understand language as well as any kindergartner, and grasped at least the basics of grammar. Now she wondered just how smart these animals really were - and they were still developing.

“That's right, I am different from you girls, because you are all raptors, and I am a human,” Anelle explained uneasily. 

 

Four weeks later the girls had picked up so many symbols that they’d started uploading new ones onto the tablet, and Anelle was freaking out. The raptors spoke like children, and not toddlers, either. They were like particularly un-educated tweens, and Anelle was starting to feel like she was doing something very wrong by keeping them in that one huge room and preparing them for lives as theme park attractions. The girls were doing simple multiplication in their heads. When provided with pens and paper, they'd started writing imaginative stories that spanned pages and had coherent plots. Nelly had started asking about whether God was real. Omni had requested to learn to read English, so she could read the Harry Potter books herself, after watching the movies. Prospira had developed an interest in television police procedurals - and had started pointing out their plot holes. Victoria wanted to know when they could start going to school like real girls, and Madonna wanted to learn “how to doctor like the vets”. 

Anelle felt like she was going crazy. She had video proof of every outstanding achievement by her girls, but she wasn't legally allowed to share it with anyone, and without proof, who would believe her? Lasseter Co owned every scrap of information about the girls, and technically owned the girls too, and no one in charge was listening to her when she told them they hadn't just made animals. Lasseter Co had poured a lot of money into the girls, and wasn't about to risk those profits, not for the sake of giving rights to non-humans. 

They couldn't keep it a secret forever. The second the girls were on display, it would surely have to be apparent. Except the girls couldn't speak any human language, couldn't learn traditional sign language with only three fingers, surely wouldn't be allowed their word-board when performing. If Anelle didn't do something, the girls would never get the opportunity to show the world how brilliant and unique they really were. They'd never be in control of their own lives, no matter how smart they got. Anelle was convinced that being treated like particularly clever animals was already beginning to affect their wellbeing.


	6. The Test

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world meets the raptor pack

Anelle wasn't the only one who cared about the girls. The vets, a good number of the techies and scientists, even the lowest-level manager of the project cared. There was no active _conspiring_ , or at least not that Anelle was a part of, but shortly after she started telling everyone who would listen that the girls deserved rights and why, things started to happen. 

Specifically, an unknown hacker or hackers raided the Lasseter Co servers, found all the documentation of the girls intelligence, and uploaded it all to a dozen different file sharing platforms, then sent links to a dozen different media companies.

The result was a veritable explosion. It seemed like every news channel was showing choice bits of footage, every blogger had an opinion, every tweet was #freetheraptors. Lasseter Co officially denied the veracity of the footage and documents, but it didn't even put a dent in things. “If the raptors are dumb animals, why won't they let any outside experts confirm it?” demanded the public, and Lasseter didn't have an answer. Verified emails proving that Lasseter Co execs had heard about the raptors’ intelligence and tried to cover it up started leaking. The head of the genomics research division resigned, swearing he’d had no idea and couldn't stand to work for Lasseter Co anymore. Lasseter stock plummeted. 

And still, the girls were stuck in the raptor room. They watched the news talk about them, and they were excited and proud, but life went on as usual for another month.

The furor had begun to die down a bit before the UN got involved. A special committee had been appointed to determine if the raptors had human-level intelligence, and it had all been hush-hush right up until they officially insisted on having their cognition experts speak directly to the girls. Suddenly the Lasseter Co higher ups were going to be either hosting a bevy of scientists or they were going to be going to jail.

 

Omni had woken up early this morning after a night of nearly no sleep, because she was excited and very, very nervous. Today the scientists were coming to the raptor room, to talk to her and her sisters, and they were going to decide if raptors counted as Real People. Omni had been up late last night discussing it with Victoria and Prospira, and they’d agreed that they _felt_ like Real People. Mother Anelle had shown them video taped about studies on the intelligence of other animals to prepare them for today, and it ought to be obvious that the raptors were smarter than any of animals they'd shown in those videos. 

And yet Omni’s anxiety remained. Humans had never found anyone else smart before, she'd asked. Humans in books could be Bad Guys, often without showing it, and what if the scientists were all Bad Guys? What if their boss was a Bad Guy? What if everyone decided they didn't _like_ having raptor-people, and they started a war like in the Planet of the Apes?

Omni really regretted watching Planet of the Apes. She'd begged for weeks for the privilege, and Mother Anelle had told her right from the start that it would upset her, but she'd insisted she could handle it. 

She really hoped it wouldn't turn out like Planet of the Apes. 

It seemed to take hours for the scientists to arrive, but it couldn't really have been more than thirty minutes since Omni had woken. Apparently the scientists were early risers as well. Anelle came in first, looking anxious and hopeful at the same time, and a roundish man with an earpiece on came in and was introduced to them as Mr. Perspeker. Mr. Perspeker explained in a friendly, warm voice that he was a child psychologist, and he had been selected by the government to interact with the raptors. The other scientists would be watching a live video of the proceedings and would be giving him suggestions on what to do and say. 

Omni thought this was a sensible arrangement; it would be very inconvenient to talk to a whole gaggle of scientists all at once, and she'd never seen that many people together in person anyway, and it might have been scary. 

Mr. Perspeker sat down next to the word-board and asked the raptors if they could tell him their names. Omni went first, of course, and dutifully tapped the “Omni” square. After her sisters were finished, Mr. Perspeker asked them if they’d recognize the symbols for their names even if they saw them on paper. They all nodded solemnly, and Victoria added a cough of approval. Mr. Perspeker seems startled to see them nod - they hadn't picked up the mannerism until recently - but agreeably brought out some large laminated flashcards with their name-symbols on them. 

“Who is this?” he asked, holding one up. Madonna stepped forward and coughed at him. “And who is this?” he asked again, holding up another. It had Mother Anelle's symbol on it rather than any of theirs, and the sisters turned and pointed to Anelle. Mr. Perspeker nodded agreeably. “Now, this symbol here -” he held up a new card with the letters MP on it - “means Mr. Perspeker. I'm going to shuffle the cards and put them on the floor, and ask you to bring me the card that has my symbol.”

Prospira dutifully shuffled through the cards and picked up the correct one in her teeth. Omni was starting to become frustrated; these tests were baby tests! She chuffed in annoyance at Mr. Perspeker and went to the word board.

“You must not think we are very smart. Nelly can do the multiplication up to 12 by 12 and I can read English I read books about a boy at a school. All of us are smart,” she tapped out laboriously. She chittered appreciatively when Mr. Perspeker went a little pale. 

“Yes, you certainly are,” he agreed. “Okay, let's try to challenge you a bit. Nelly, can you tell me what twelve times thirteen is?” 

Nelly chuffed contemptuously, and took Omni’s place by the word board. “Need paper word board goes up only to 144.” There was a moment of quiet as Mother Anelle provided a pen and paper, and Nelly took the pen in both hands to write.

“144 + 12 = 156,” she wrote, and presented the paper to Mr. Perspeker. Then she returned to the word board and added “I want to learn how to do multiplication of big numbers without adding many times one by one but 12 by 13 is simple math because I know 12 by 12.”

“Well, if only my daughter was so interested in mathematics,” said Mr. Perspeker wonderingly. “Can all of you do multiplication?” 

“Yes but not as high as 12 by 12. All raptors remember up to five by five,” answered Nelly. “Will answer slow and want paper for bigger. Ask Prospira to solve a riddle or Madonna to write you a story we like different things.”

The live stream of the raptors’ intelligence test was the world's most viewed broadcast in less than an hour.


	7. Moving On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new way of life is carved out, and we return to raptor fluff.

Now that the girls are proven sapient, no one seems to quite know what to do with them. Oh, every talk show and their cousin wants a chance to have them on air, and laws are being changed to accommodate non-humans rights, but where are they going to _live_? Who’s going to be paying for the girls’ living expenses? Who's going to be paying Anelle, who won't accept anyone else taking care of the girls but who can no longer claim that duty as a paying job? Will the girls go to school, or be home tutored, or be left to their own devices? Will they ever have jobs themselves, and independent lives? 

Anelle doesn't know how to answer these questions - didn't even realize until late in the game that these questions needed answers at all, not with the havoc and confusion of trying to care for five growing raptors and get out from under Lasserton Co’s thumb at the same time. 

Luckily for her, there are people who want to help. It seems like every animal rights group in the world is battling for the chance to take care of the heavy lifting. Eventually the UN steps in again and hand-picks a cadre of specialists and experts to make up the newly-born Non-Human Intelligence Foundation. Anelle talks to the girls about where they want to live, and it's agreed that a house out in the country, but not too far from civilization, will be financed by the foundation. Anelle is assured that things like security and paparazzi flocks and legal issues will be wrangled by professionals. Anelle is offered about seven different book deals and a great many speaking engagements, and she takes the book deal because it’ll easily provide for her for the foreseeable future. She avoids going on TV, and won't let the girls be harassed or interviewed or anything else either - she doesn't think it's good for them. She's never heard of a child celebrity story with a happy ending, and she's not going to let anything bad happen to her girls. 

And so, gradually, the weeks pass, and life begins to settle into a routine. By the time the girls are 10 months old everyone has gotten used to the new normal. It's a crazy kind of normal - they’ll never stop being world-famous celebrities - but it works. The girls are being taught at home via a bevy of private tutors, but they meet plenty of kids on the playground or out around town, so they aren't starved for socialization any more. Anelle, the girls, and their neighbors get used to always having a black car and some suited guards around. They shop at a normal grocery store like everyone else, because Anelle thinks it's good for them, and it only takes a few weeks for the natives people to stop going out of their way to meet them, mostly because by then they know all the really nosy folks and are deliberately avoiding them. 

It's weird, really, how everything works out so well so fast. Anelle considers it the result of a combination of letting themselves drop out of the public eye as soon as possible, and a great deal of crisis-management by the folks at the Non-Human Intelligence Foundation. 

Anelle cries the first time Victoria shyly asks for a play-date with a kid from the playground, an 8-year old girl named Titania who's not afraid to wrestle with raptors or push them on the swings. The girls may be learning algebra, but they're still young emotionally, and prefer the rambunctious play of younger children. She has to explain to the horrified raptor that these are happy tears, that she's just so happy that Victoria’s made a friend. With the slightly anxious consent of the girl’s mother they set a date and activity - a nature hike at a local park, which conveniently has a playground to return to for when the young ones get tired of nature’s majesty. 

 

Victoria has been building up to this moment for weeks. It started with a plan, spoken of only when Anelle wasn’t around: what if she could make a friend? A real true friend who’d be with her through thick and thin, like you saw on TV, not an acquaintance at the park. The possibilities had been considered seriously, and it was decided that the first step in making a friend was a playdate. 

Victoria had been really worried when Mother Anelle started crying, but apparently grown-ups could cry from being happy as well as being sad, so it had worked out alright. (Victoria thought that crying from happiness was a bit silly, but then again she’d never cried at all, at least not with tears like humans did. Maybe it was different from raptor keening.) 

And today, right now, they were pulling into the parking lot of the big nature park. Mother Anelle had explained that a big nature park was different from the little park in town; a big nature park was much much larger, and would have trees and streams and birds and things, and could be gotten lost in. All the girls were to make sure they could see Mother Anelle _all the time_ , they couldn’t run off even to check on something really interesting just really quickly. There was a little zoo where they took care of animals that had been injured, but no one was to scare the little animals, regardless of if it looked like fun. It was baby stuff, Omni said, but Victoria liked hearing all the rules up-front, because she knew if anyone was going to cause trouble, it was probably going to be her. She just had so much energy all the time, and things were always so interesting, she couldn’t help herself.

Victoria had promised herself that she was going to behave _perfectly_ today, no matter what. She was going to show off that she could be just as good a girl as any human that had ever lived, so that Titania’s mom would see that raptors weren’t so scary after all. She was, she had decided, an _ambassador_ , like the ones on the news; an ambassador to everyone who was nervous about being friends with someone with sharp teeth and claws.

The girls unstrapped themselves from their special raptor-friendly car seats, slung the straps of their new, smaller word-tablets around their necks, and poured out of the back of Mother Anelle’s van. Victoria’s first impression was one of thick greenery and a riot of birdsong, and she looked around in wonder. There was a little flattish building with a mural depicting birds and woodland creatures on it over to the left, and trailheads for hiking around the parking lot, and a road continued into the park and was quickly obscured by the trees. Mother Anelle lead them to the building first, where they found a couple of park rangers and a gift shop. The park rangers introduced themselves very politely (they seemed staggeringly unconcerned that these visitors were raptors, and Victoria wondered if Mother Anelle had warned them ahead of time), and showed the girls where the door to the yard in the back of the building was, where they had the cages with the animals that were recovering. Victoria felt very sorry for the little owl who lived there permanently; he had nice accomodations and everything, but he thought he was a human because he’d been hatched by humans, and he wasn’t smart enough for anyone to tell him otherwise. Victoria had a mental image of herself if she’d been a proper animal, sitting in a zoo cage and trying to figure out why she couldn’t be out where the other people were. 

Then she told herself she was being silly, and if she’d been an animal she wouldn’t have been able to mind, and that she was anthropomorphizing, except they ought to call it something different when raptors did it. Then Titania arrived and there wasn’t any more time for fretting because this was a time for _all the excitement_ and she just barely restrained herself from pouncing on Titania like she might on one of her sisters. Well-behaved girls didn’t pounce, they said hello like proper sapients. And then they might hug, if the other party was agreeable.

Titania wasn’t too interested in watching the animals in the cages lie around recovering, and she didn’t care enough to read the plaque in front of the owl’s cage. Victoria told her the interesting bits anyway as they went outside and started hiking; that particular owl was an Elf Owl and Elf Owls were the smallest species of owls in the world and they were predators like raptors actually a whole lot like raptors, Victoria had gotten some books about birds of prey from the library because Mother Anelle said that the girls had a lot of hawk DNA in them and did you know that birds of prey were actually called raptors…

Titania listened very patiently, even when Victoria got frustrated with how slow it was to type things out on her word tablet and let out a screech that very badly startled Titania’s mother. Victoria made sure to apologize directly for that, after Mother Anelle had reassured her.


	8. Whiplash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First good stuff, then bad stuff. You didn't really think raptors could integrate into the modern world *that* easily, did you? 
> 
> Trigger warnings in end notes

Prospira loves the nature hike, and complains vociferously when everyone gets bored and they double back to the playground. It's a good playground, one of the great big ones with every sort of equipment imaginable, even one of those big spinny things you can sit on. Prospira ignores it entirely and investigates the woods that border one side of the playground and the lakeside that borders the other. 

The lake is full of little minnows and all sorts of water birds, and Prospira watches them with the intent stillness of the ambush predator she knows she is. She wouldn't hurt any of the animals - Prospira loves animals, and the girls have never hunted a living being - but the instincts are still there, telling her it's pleasing to stay so still that the animals forget she's there. 

Mother Anelle says that if the girls want to learn to hunt, she’ll do her best to help, but they’ve all admitted they'd rather not. They're not squeamish per se; blood and viscera doesn't bother them, indeed it looks quite tasty, but they're all softhearted enough to feel uncomfortable with the idea of personally killing a cute animal for sport. Mother Anelle says it's her fault, that they picked up that softness from her, and frets that she's been a bad mother, Prospira knows. She thinks this is silly. Plenty of humans like hunting, and plenty of humans don't, and they've all got predator instincts too; why shouldn't raptors be allowed to be softhearted? 

Prospira does stalk a couple of unwary ducks, though, just to prove she can. There's a visceral thrill to getting close enough to pounce on a living being. She thinks she would make an excellent spy, if spying was more like in the movies, with lots of sneaking around.

She wonders if Titiana might be amenable to playing prey in a play-hunt, like Mother Anelle does. Then she wonders if that would scare Titiana’s mother. People still seem to expect raptors to be viscerally dangerous in a way that Prospira finds mildly insulting. Even if she was tempted to snack on human remains (and she isn't, not any more than a human hunter would be), she would like to think it's obvious that she wouldn't get away with it, and that she has the self-control to keep from doing something they'd put her to death for.

Whatever. Prospira snaps her jaw irritably and goes to see if Nelly will push her on the swings.

 

Nelly is lazing next to Mother Anelle and Titiana’s Mom at one of the picnic benches when she hears a gunshot and a scream somewhere nearby (how nearby? Prospira will know) and she freezes into absolute stillness and silence as Titiana's Mom and Mother Anelle both scream in surprise.

It takes a fraction of a second to register that she can't smell the guards anymore, and she can _always_ smell the guards. Mother Anelle is jumping to her feet and calling the girls to her, with a warble of terror in her voice but a strength in her bearing. Titiana’s mom scoops Titiana off the slide, the two adults share a look of horror, seeming to communicate wordlessly, and then everyone's running down the path, away from the sounds of danger. It's lucky that the girls are natural runners, even faster than an adult sprinter, because Mother Anelle couldn't have carried all five of them the way Titiana's mom is carrying Titiana, who could never run as fast as an adult. Mother Anelle is trying to convince the girls to run faster, to go ahea on their own, but they're ignoring her, bunched up around her feet in a pack formation they’ve never practiced but which feels instinctively like safety right now. 

Nelly doesn't know what the right thing to do is right now, and she prides herself on usually knowing what to do. If only she'd paid more attention to those real crime shows Prospira liked - and she can't ask Prospira what to do, not without stopping and typing it out slowly on her word board. Maybe if the raptors had grown up alone their bevy of sounds would have evolved into a real language, but it didn't - it's just auditory body language, basically, and anyway she feels a pressing need to keep completely silent. 

Mother Anelle obviously doesn't feel that need, and is keeping up a constant stream of encouragement and reassurance. Nelly wishes she could tell her mother to be quiet, please be quiet, she doesn't know how a human child would react (actually she does - Titiana is screaming shrilly and can't seem to stop) but the girls aren't fledglings, they're made from prey and predator both, and they can cope until the adrenaline wears off. After that Nelly is pretty sure she's going to collapse into a keening, shaking mess, but that's for the future. 

Titiana's Mom isn't as fit as Mother Anelle and is beginning to gasp for breath. Nelly thinks it won't be long until she lags behind. Should they slow down for her? Would she be safer with or without them? She follows Mother Anelle's lead and begins to slow so they can all stay together. They veer off the path and move more slowly through the woods, trying to get deep into the brush where they can't be seen. Titiana’s quiet now, hiccuping in a gasping sort of way like she's struggling to breathe as they settle behind a massive fallen log.

Then they wait, very quietly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, that was a hard right turn, wasn't it? I love fluff, but I knew from the beginning that this story was going to involve some scary times too. Y'all let me know what you think.
> 
>  **warning** Distant gunshot and women and children in fear for their lives.


	9. Resolution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The relief from that cliffhanger I left you on, and badass raptors.

Madonna holds her breath as she hears some tramping through the leaves on the path. She wants this to be over, wants to collapse into a heap of shuddering, keening misery, and have Mother Anelle hold her and sooth her. She's never been this scared, not ever, and it's weird how it seems to make time stretch out into crystal clarity. She can feel the vaguest hint of her emotions, as if watching them from behind glass. 

Jurassic Park was wrong, wrong, wrong. Real raptors aren't fearless, she thinks vaguely. _Nothing_ is fearless, not unless it's very very stupid. 

The person on the path has stopped moving. 

“Ms. Burns, come out, come out, or I can't ensure your safety, you little -” he finishes with what Madonna knows is a bad word. 

There's a long moment of silence. Madonna glances at her sisters - Victoria and Nelly both look like they're ready to charge the guy, but Omni’s holding them back with just a look.

“I can hear you breathing, you sick little abominations. Shall I just spray and pray? My cause is just,” insists the voice. 

Omni tilts her head and brings up her word board, and taps at it, but doesn't press the “speak aloud” button.

“He’ll kill Mom and us if we stay here,” it reads. Omni clears the message, and writes again. “We can bring him down if we're careful.”

Madonna isn't certain about that, but the first message was definitely true. She nods at her sister. 

“Hunt him like we hunt Anelle,” Omni commands silently. Madonna nods again; they’ve got hunting Anelle down to a fine art. That puts Madonna as the distraction. Carefully, silently, she creeps around the fallen tree and towards the west, further down the path. The man has a gun, obviously, so she can't give her position away, not like she normally does as a flashy attention-getter. She picks up a couple small rocks in her mouth and leaps onto the lower limbs of a sapling, then makes her way higher. She may not be quite as good a climber as a parrot, but she's close, and she can jump a good distance to make up for it. She pulls one of the rocks out of her mouth and drops it in the middle of a bush, where it makes a satisfactory rustle as it lands. 

“I heard that!” screams the man, shrilly, manically, and shoots several times in the direction of the sound. “You won't get away, you blasphemy! Spawn of Satan!” Then everything goes quiet again, everyone listening hard through the ringing in their ears. Madonna leaps through the branches to another tree, closer to the path, further west. Let it sound like they're trying to stealthily make a run for it, she thinks as she drops the next stone. Draw him away from where Mother Anelle is hiding. There's another burst of gunfire, another bout of yelling vague threats. She hears him moving down the path before he shoots again, crunching leaves and mulch under heavy human feet. 

This idiot’s never stalked anything in his life, Madonna thinks disdainfully. The rocks make sound when they fall, but it's not the sound of footsteps, not the same sort of rustling you get when a body is passing through underbrush. It would never fool one of the raptors, not even considering their lack of experience. 

There's a long silence, and Madonna is just considering dropping the third and final rock when there's a scream, a gunshot, and a chorus of screeching raptors. The hunt is over - either they got him or they didn't. Madonna's heart is hammering in her chest as she drops to the ground and sprints towards the sound of her sisters. 

She clears the brush to see Victoria standing with her jaw closed on the side of the little man’s neck where he lies on his side, eyes wide. She's poised to rip out his jugular, and he obviously knows it. It's semi-comical to see a roughly chicken-sized individual keeping down an adult human. Omni is watching closely from a little ways down the path, where the gun has dropped. 

The scary part is over.


	10. Denoument

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life goes on

The raptor girls are tough as nails right up until the cops arrive, and then they're scared children again, crying helplessly and staying as close to Anelle as they can. Anelle is crying herself - has been since she saw her girls leaving, stalking into the underbrush with purpose - and is only too happy to have them close. Talking to the police, being looked over by the EMTs, driving home all happens in a haze. The girls all pile into bed with Anelle they cry together, shaking and keening until gradually, one by one, the girls and Anelle both fall asleep. 

Anelle wakes screaming from a nightmare, but they're all there with her, chirping and warbling reassuringly, and she cries a little more and goes back to sleep.

The next day dawns as normal as anything, except for waking up in a raptor pile. Anelle checks the presence of the guards outside a dozen times as she makes breakfast, but the girls don't seem any more skittish than usual. It's a shock to see the headline “Raptors and Friends Attacked in Park” blaring in large font on her usual news websites, and she has to force herself to take deep, even breaths. 

When she gets a text message from Titiana's mother saying they don't want to see the girls again, it's all she can do to laugh until she cries. She has to admit, she wouldn't want a repeat of a playdate with an attack from a gunman, either. Anelle seriously considers whether the girls are going to need a therapist.

It turns out they don't. Actually, they seem completely fine, to an almost alien degree. Since they fell asleep on Anelle bed they haven't shown a hint of trauma. It's Anelle who wakes up shaking from nightmares of what could have happened. Anelle gets them a therapist anyway, just in case they're repressing or something, but the therapist says they're shockingly well-adjusted. Apparently raptors don't get PTSD, or if they do, it either won't come on until later or is too alien for humans to recognize. 

It's a relief, but also another reminder that the girls are starkly _not human_ in a way they're usually all too good at hiding. They’ve grown up around Anelle, and watched a lot of TV, and they're getting used to life in town - they're well-socialized in seeming so human it's hard to remember they're raptors when you're not looking at them. In a way, that just makes it more jarring when they slip up. Like when Anelle catches them watching an old slasher flick, and she tells them off under the assumption that they’ll have scared themselves silly; but the truth is they'd found it kind of boring and unrealistic. 

Anelle tries not to think too hard about the fact that the girls know what type of serial-killer stalking counts as “realistic”. They're predators through and through, and she can't (or at least shouldn't) try to take that away from them. 

In any case, life devolves back into its normal patterns, so quickly it's a bit of a shock to Anelle. It feels like going through such a close call should have a permanent effect on their lives, but the only difference is that the girls care a little more about sharpening their hunting skills. Anelle, with copious help from the Non-Human Intelligence Foundation, arranges things so that the girls each have special hunting licences, and some afternoons they go to the park and stalk whatever they can find, although they don't kill anything - it's more of a catch-and-release deal.


End file.
